Agatha Harkness's Arc

Chapter 14 of 21

Agatha left the hall of doors with one truth she hated. Only Ursula could cut a voice from a mirror. Only Ursula wanted her ruined. The sea witch had sworn double payment for the stolen name. The moment Agatha stepped near the water, Ursula would strike first and take twice what she asked. Agatha needed the summons emptied. She could not walk to the sea to beg for it. So she did the one thing Ursula would not expect. She sent someone else. She returned to her altar room. The frost mirror hung on the wall, sealed and quiet. Behind its cracked glass, Peter sat playing his endless game. The cake, the bottle, the key. He never grew bored. He never won. "Peter," she said. "I have a trade." He looked up. His green eyes found her without warmth. "You paid your debt. We're done." "A new one, then." Agatha touched the frame. "Your wife. Ursula. She holds a voice I need pulled from this glass. She'll never do it for me. She might do it for you." Peter was still for a long moment. "She isn't my wife anymore." "But she was." Agatha leaned close. "You know her name. You know her waters. She can't refuse the one who married her." He set the key down. "What do I get." "Out of the game." Agatha said it plainly. "You cut the summons from my mirror through her. When it's done, I break the frame. You go home to Neverland." Peter studied the game in his lap. She had built it to trap him forever. He knew that. He also knew he was tired of it. "She'll want something from you first," he said. "She always does." "Then she takes it from you to reach me. Not from me directly." Agatha smiled. "You carry the risk. I carry the mirror." A spectral carriage waited outside her manor gate. It shimmered pale green, wheels turning through curling mist. It ran between mortal ground and fae water. Agatha had called it to carry Peter's reflection to the sea without her ever touching the shore. Peter pressed his palm to the cracked glass. "Send me, then." Agatha spoke the words. The frost mirror pulled his reflection loose. It slid down the wall, across the floor, and into the carriage's dark window. The lanterns flared. The wheels turned. The carriage rolled into the mist and was gone. Agatha sat alone in the altar room. The mirror hung empty of him now, but the summons still hummed under the seal. She had not touched the sea. Ursula could not strike first at a witch who never came. The double payment now hunted a fae king inside a ghost carriage, not her. She had bought her way past the sea witch's vow. But she had sent the one voice Ursula loved into the sea witch's reach, and she had promised to break the mirror when it returned.